Oct 8, 2010
Morality and Neuroscience, An Introduction
An overview of recent research in cognitive neuroscience and pertinent concerns.
Recommended readings:
Does moral action depend on reasoning? Thirteen views on the question. 2010. A Templeton Conversation.
Greene, J.D. 2003. From neural “is” to moral “ought”: what are the moral implications of neuroscientific moral psychology? Nature Reviews Neuroscience 4: 847-850.
Greene, J.D. 2009. The cognitive neuroscience of moral judgment, in The Cognitive Neurosciences IV. M.S. Gazzaniga (Ed.) MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Haidt, J. 2007. The New Synthesis in Moral Psychology. Science 316:998-1002.
Hauser, M. D. 2006. Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong. New York: Harper Collins.
Kahane, G. 2010. The crippled armchair: an argument for experimental ethics. James Martin 21 Century School Advanced Research Seminar. Oxford University (February)
Kahane, G. and N. Shackel. 2008. Do abnormal responses show utilitarian bias? Nature 452 doi:10.1038/nature06785.
Koenigs, M., Young, L., Adolphs, R., Tranel, D., Cushman, F., Hauser, M.D., & Damasio, A. 2007. Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgments. Nature 446(7138): 908-911.
Koenigs et al. 2008. Koenigs et al. reply. Nature 452. doi:10.1038/nature06804
Petrinovich, L., P. O’Neil, and M. Jorgensen. 1993. An Empirical Study of Moral Intuitions: Towards an Evolutionary Ethics. Ethology and Sociobiology 64: 467-478.
Pippin, Robert B. 2009. Natural and Normative. Dædalus 138(3):35-43.
Rorty, R. 2006. Born to be good. New York Times, August 27. [Review of Hauser’s Moral Minds]
Sterba, J. P. 1995. Justifying Morality and the Challenge of Cognitive Science. In Ethics and Cognitive Science. Larry May and Marilyn Friedman (eds.) Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Timmons, M. 1997. Will cognitive science change ethics? Philosophical Psychology 10(4):531-540.
Young, L., J.A. Camprodon, M. Hauser, A. Pascual-Leone, and Rebecca Saxe. 2010. Disruption of the right temporoparietal junction with transcranial magnetic stimulation reduces the role of beliefs in moral judgments. Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America. doi:10.1073/pnas.0914826107